Looking for help on choosing media

[Kevin Schultz]

Is there a benefit to sticking with a single brand? Example, oracal vinyl & oracal laminate vs oracal vinyl @ 3M laminate? Are they actually designed in-house to work better with their own products or is that just a sales line?

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[2B]

"technically" you have to use the same brand for warranty claims HOWEVER getting a manufacturer to honor a warranty is a waste of time

We mix on a regular bases

 

[Ernestww]

What type of media to get depends entirely on what you are doing.

I mix up DOL and media somewhat but you should be careful for stuff that has to last. You can get delamination over time if the contraction rates are different. Also, there is no point putting cheap laminate on your wrap film or optically clear on your coroplast signs.

You will get some suggestion if you outline your jobs.

 

[ikarasu]

The only benefit is you know it's compatible.

Warranty as well.. but they only cover replacement on the product, not labor. We e warranties a few things with 3m -

They had a reflective vinyl that delaminated from the glue after a year. So we had every roll we purchased refunded to us... Something like $2200. We didn't use it a lot, I think 3 rolls. Maybe 5 jobs came back to us as delaminated... It cost us a heck of a lot more than $2200 to reface the signs and reinstall them for the client. So while getting some money is nice... Warranty isn't worth sticking to the same brand over.


We mix all the time. Only time we don't is of it's supposed to be traffic certified, or it's a government job that specs it. Other than that... It's a free for all. I'd test your combo first before printing and laminating 10 rolls though. Incompatibility is rare, but it does happen.